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Coronavirus discussion thread

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Johnny Blaze Jan 2021 10:51am, 30 Jan 2021 24,685 posts	0 Johnny Blaze Given we are in Lockdown 3, with hindsight we could have shut up shop completely in March for 3 months and possibly had a better outcome? It would have been a brave person to do it. There was a chap on "How to vaccinate the world" who said that countries had fallen into 2 categories: those who had learnt the lessons from SARS and MERS and those who hadn't. Guess which category we fell into? He also said that with 3 novel coronavirus emergencies in 20 years we'd better get used to the idea of another one coming pretty soon unless we start changing some fundamentals about our behaviour on this planet. If we don't use this catastrophe as a spur to developing all of the strategies and tools necessary to handle the next outbreak we will be here again soon, and the next one could easily be worse.
simbil Jan 2021 10:54am, 30 Jan 2021 9,184 posts	0 simbil Mistakes have no doubt been made and we are where we are - and we need to learn how to do better. I’m concerned that more half arsed stuff will lead to a dangerous breeding ground for resistant strains. It still needs serious suppression for that reason.
swittle Jan 2021 10:57am, 30 Jan 2021 72,629 posts	0 swittle The numbers of cases & deaths re MERS and SARS - and ebola too - were very much lower than those for the present covid 19 pandemic.
Tim of Fife Jan 2021 11:11am, 30 Jan 2021 3,258 posts	0 Tim of Fife Yesterday, whilst walking in the street in mid-afternoon, I had my first ever pass-by with someone who was genuinely terrified. Because of parked cars etc, I could go into the road. So went by her at maybe 1.5 metres. She turned away from me and almost cowered against a wall. So sad for her. I wanted to stop and chat - just generally and to tell her not to be so scared. But would have done no good
It’sBeginningToLookALotLikeFleecy Jan 2021 11:14am, 30 Jan 2021 51,820 posts	0 It’sBeginningToLookALotLikeFleecy Larkim: the people swabbing themselves have a mirror in front of them to see where their tonsils are. They are given clear instructions on where to aim for and not to touch any other bits of their mouth. Then we stand behind them and give them a countdown for both tonsils and nostril, from behind you can check that they’re doing it correctly. We’ve had about as many positives as you’d expect from local prevalence numbers, if there were a large number of false negatives then you’d expect almost no positives. These are also the same lateral flow tests which NHS staff use at home twice a week, only they do nostril only. I’d say that the swabbing is done better than people doing it unsupervised in their cars at PCR testing sites, even if the test itself is less accurate.
Ocelot Spleens Jan 2021 11:22am, 30 Jan 2021 30,037 posts	0 Ocelot Spleens OH does the Lateral Flow test at home, doesn't look, or sound, very pleasant, but it appears to be doing a decent job, less cases at her work. I also wonder how much of the lesser number of cases, are beacuse of better PPE this time around, better awareness (even NHS staff were relaxing away from patients, i.e no masks etc), and finally vaccination, as they all have been for almost a month now.
It’sBeginningToLookALotLikeFleecy Jan 2021 11:25am, 30 Jan 2021 51,821 posts	0 It’sBeginningToLookALotLikeFleecy Probably all of the above New type of test being trialled at Surrey uni, this could be really useful if it gives good results: surrey.ac.uk
anthonyj89 Jan 2021 11:54am, 30 Jan 2021 138 posts	0 anthonyj89 The specificity of that new test is far better than the PCR test, could be the new gold standard.
The_Saint Jan 2021 12:29pm, 30 Jan 2021 6,712 posts	0 The_Saint I would imagine that there are people right now doing sociological stuff into why some countries are able to work highly cooperatively against the virus and most aren't. I have heard all the dumb excuses about places like Australia being "tiny, remote islands" which gets so many things wrong it isn't worth engaging with.
run free Jan 2021 1:29pm, 30 Jan 2021 4,671 posts	0 run free China is doing anal swabs now as they have found it more accurate!